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Health Care
Johnston County Memorial Hospital Offers State-of-the-Art Health Care
Johnston Memorial Hospital is in the midst of two major construction projects in Smithfield and Clayton.
Say aahh – as in so many accomplishments.
Johnston Memorial Hospital is embarking on two major construction projects that are the largest in its 57-year history.
Beginning in 2007‚ work started on a $100 million renovation to the Smithfield campus that will include construction of a new‚ five-story patient tower.
In addition‚ JMH will build a $39 million outpatient facility in Clayton that will feature an emergency department‚ outpatient operating rooms‚ diagnostic imaging services and a laboratory.
The Clayton building will open in late 2009 near the Johnston County/Wake County borderline.
“Actually‚ three different phases of the Clayton project have been planned‚ with hopes that the facility will eventually become a full-fledged hospital in itself‚” says Jim Perpich‚ director of marketing and community relations at Johnston Memorial Hospital. “The Clayton effort will put us on the map as a health system since JMH won’t simply be a one-site community hospital anymore. We are expanding to a second campus.”
As for the long-standing Smithfield building‚ 119 parking spots will be added as part of the $100 million project. In addition‚ construction of the five-story patient tower will allow the hospital to expand from 175 beds to 199 all-new suites.
“When completed in 2009‚ all of the patient rooms at JMH will be private‚ with modern amenities such as flat-screen TVs‚ wireless Internet and pullout beds for visitors‚” Perpich says.
Other plans at Smithfield include the installation of a high-energy linear accelerator to assist in the treatment of cancer patients. A 12-bed hospice for terminally ill patients will be constructed in Bingham Park‚ directly behind JMH.
Perpich says all the expansions are necessary for Johnston County’s only hospital because the county’s population will balloon to an estimated 155‚000 residents in 2008 – up from 122‚000 in 2000.
“Other good news for JMH is that we welcomed three new physicians to the staff in 2007‚” Perpich says. “We added a surgeon‚ an orthopedic surgeon and the county’s first infectious disease specialist.”
Perpich says the addition of physicians stems from a recent survey that JMH conducted‚ polling 700 Johnston County residents on what the No. 1 health-care need was at the hospital.
“The people said we needed to add more physicians‚ so that is exactly what we did‚” he says. “Now that we have new doctors in place and our construction plans are finalized‚ the next step for this hospital is to begin a marketing campaign to inform residents of all the positives that JMH has to offer.”
Perpich says a mailing campaign began in fall of 2007 to inform residents about all the changes taking place at JMH.
“Not many people know that we have doctors on staff who graduated from top medical universities such as Johns Hopkins‚ Duke and Pennsylvania‚” he says. “We want to get the word out that patients don’t need to drive all the way into Raleigh for expert medical attention. Patients simply need to make the easy drive to Johnston Memorial Hospital.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
Photo by Ian Curcio
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